


Iguazu Falls

by coffinofachimera



Series: Traveler's Digest [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cute, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Nature, No Plot/Plotless, Tourists, Vacation, foreign country
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 10:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7614076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffinofachimera/pseuds/coffinofachimera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam and Harry visit a waterfall in Argentina, but find themselves distracted by a peculiar video on Liam's phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iguazu Falls

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I wrote in the library to get back into writing. I need to write more. Listening to bossa nova lead me to write something very cute and fun. I hope it can make you laugh. It was very fun to write. The theme for this story is inhibitions.

"'Catching up with Celine Dion.' Wow Harry this sounds like your kind of news segment."

For a while Liam doesn't hear anything. But then the creaky sound of footsteps comes his way. "I don't even like Celine Dion," Harry says, now by Liam's side as he takes a peek down at the phone in his hands. Held horizontal, a video interview of Celine Dion on some morning talk show playing.

 _"I used to be 50/50 as partnership with my husband who was my manager and the father of my children."_ Celine Dion tells an older blonde woman who must be in her sixties, mid-fifties at least. They sit on a little glass table decorated with yellow flowers and wine glasses as the words 'CATCHING UP WITH CELINE DION' pose on a white bar at the bottom. Celine looks older than Liam really remembers, but mostly because he never really knew what she looked like. She wears a black dress with bright red patterns and a blue collar, with gold bracelets and white nails. With inspiring conviction she monologues on, and the host woman to her left puts in minimal effort to say a thing. _"And I really feel that to see him suffering for the last 3 years of his life it was not my husband. And... to see him suffer so much it was very ver—"_

"Her accent is weird," Liam tells Harry. "I don't think I've ever heard her talk before. Where is she from? Poland?"

Harry's blue plastic poncho crinkles as he turns his head sharply to give Liam a narrow eyed look of disapproval. "...Canada." Liam doesn't get to see it, looking down at his phone.

"Drake doesn't sound like that."

"It's a different part. They speak... French... I think."

"Is she the one who sings the Titanic song?" An important question. It might be the only thing Liam associates with her name. He knows she's a good singer. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion— the Holy Trinity.

"No."

Liam lifts his head and turns it to Harry with a frown. "Yes she was!"

"No."

"Then who sang My Heart Will Go On?"

Harry leans forward and rests his elbows on the bars of the metal catwalk they're standing on. There's a goofy-looking family of four behind them looking up in fascination at the natural wonder before them. The tour guide makes for an enthusiastic storyteller, but he's only catering to the questions of this family in specific. Boring questions; directions, things to do with cities Liam and Harry have never heard of. Until they finish chit-chatting they don't get to go anywhere else. Liam's found an interesting way to kill time. But in a way, Harry has no choice but to engage. He ponders for a bit on Liam's original question as he looks down at the wild river splashing under them. "I don't know. It wasn't Celine Dion. I think she sings country."

Liam turns his attention back to the phone again. The background noise makes it hard to hear the video. He can't tell what Celine Dion talking about, and talking to Harry isn't helping. Still, he stirs the pot and keeps the conversation going. "A Canadian country singer? Have they got cowboys there? Have they got cows in Canada?" Liam can't imagine it. But he can't imagine much of anything as long as his focus proves loyal to the video playing on his phone. Watching a Celine Dion interview and discussing Canadian dairy cows aren't easy things to juggle. "I know they sell bagged milk in Canada. Is it because it's imported?"

Harry's face twists into a scowl. "What?"

"With the cold. Do they have cows? Cows need hot climates, I reckon. I've never seen one in the snow. What do they do with them?"

"Liam, these are the worst questions I've ever been asked."

 _"—nd knowing that now he's not suffering anymore. And I look at my children and I see him through their eyes. And it's like—"_ Liam can't hear what she says and he purses his lips. _"...and I tell— ...ot gone. He lives within us. He lives in our heart."_

"Wait, who died?" He didn't think he'd end up intrigued with the video.

"Just raise the volume."

"The people behind us will hear."

"So?"

"Fine." Liam raises the volume to avoid missing any more of the video. Surely enough the family of four behind them direct some puzzled judgement their way for spoiling the ambience with Celine Dion's voice. Harry wiggles his butt side to side for the sake of doing something stupid while people are looking.

"The quality of the video isn't so good." Liam mumbles, but Harry isn't listening. "It sounds crunchy."

"It's the waterfall, bumhead."

That could account for the sound or the reception bringing the video quality down to 144p. It's amazing he has any at all in a place like this. He only opened the video to test the speed.

_"—to say that I'm very grateful um when he passed um... And I was very fortunate that, to make a long story short, that my children did not found him."_

_"Yes."_

_"And the second thing is that I needed to take charge. Uh, he had his will. And I really wanted to make sure that it was going to happen the way that he wanted it."_

_"Yes."_

_"And then uh... to make a long story short, I kind of asked for some books to help me to help with my kids cope with that. And everything I was reading I was like, it didn't cope— it didn't do well with me."_

"I think it's her husband that's died," Harry mumbles as he, too, finds himself compelled to care about Celine Dion's interview. Much of his trail of thought compares to Liam's— concerns regarding her reputation, and what exactly it is she does. "He was super old."

"I thought you said you weren't a Celine Dion fan. Liar."

"That sort of thing shows up on the news," Harry says defensively. Although being a Celine Dion fan is hardly the most embarrassing thing he could be accused of being. There's more mainstream and uncool vintage media he's into. Pretty Woman doesn't hold as much pizazz in the 90's film fandom as Clueless and Kids does. And listening Basshunter unironically doesn't do you any favors, either. But Liam was right. Celine Dion did sound like something Harry would be into.

Harry changes positions again, now resting his weight on one leg as he bumps shoulders with Liam. His face looks rounder with the hoodie of the plastic poncho framing his face, and his concentrated pout makes it an even more prominent characteristic. Squishy and squinty-eyed, skin a bit damp from the mist flying by. Liam doesn't seem concerned; no poncho, and nothing to protect his phone, either. The mist isn't something he feels, but he'll realize Harry was right about it being an issue when he finds that the humidity was so powerful it frizzed his neatly flat-ironed quiff. And most likely damaged his phone.

"My kids just love Chuck-E-Cheese. They're the biggest kids there. But they just love that pizza. All those games and stuff, they're crazy about them. Right kids? They've broken all the records there at the arcade. They're the best out of all the kids ."

White Father of Three elbows his kids for a response, but they shyly shrug and smile.

"My oldest, he's twenty-three. That's this one, Hunter Joe. Mikhayla Grace is twenty."

"So you like pizza huh?" the tour guide says in his cheery Argentine Spanish accent. "They got good pizza in America, right? And cheese?"

"They... love that cheese." White Father of Three and White Mother of Three both laugh. "Mozzarella!"

"Chuck-E-Cheese is where I feel alive."

Harry can't help but give a furrowed-brow glance over his shoulder at the conversation he was eavesdropping on. But a nudge from Liam prompts him to look back down at the phone.

_"—and all these things that were flying and I said, 'You know what? Where is papa?' 'Mama you just said he's up.' 'Papa is not coming back. Once you go up there's no booboo. Papa is talking, he's eating, he's having a good time. But he's in our heart, and he's watching down. And you know what we're gonna do right now? We're gonna celebrate life.'"_

_"Amen,"_ the blonde, old TV show host nods, Celine Dion's powerful words moving her deeply.

 _"'And we're gonna take Tinkerbell powder— magic powder— and we're gonna outside because the sun is going and he sees us, we're gonna—"_ she blows as if blowing magic dust from her palm, _"—blow sparkles and we're gonna have a party.'"_

Apparently Celine Dion's husband was sick for a long time and finally died fairly recently. On the show she tells the story of how she coped with his passing and how she helped her kids cope, too. A picture of all of them together was shown briefly; twins and one teenage boy. It's making for a surprisingly interesting interview. Liam and Harry both look down attentively at the screen, keen to hear more. But Harry can't help but mumble,

"This isn't the sort of thing you watch by the foot of a South American waterfall."

"It really isn't." Liam shakes his head in agreement. Their wrongdoing is acknowledged, though neither of them have any intention of doing anything about it. They feel so modern in that frequently loathed way. They could hear it, a fedora-clad man of forty-five reciting the tired topic that references fast food and Facebook regarding the downfall of our modern society. Eat a book, drink a milkshake, communicate via carrier pigeon— make the world a better place. Stop watching Celine Dion interviews and pay attention to Iguazu Falls in front of you.

It really is a breathtaking waterfall. Iguazu Falls: one of the seven natural wonders of the world according to Travel Magazine. A half-ring cliff wrapped with dozens of waterfalls that send a river crashing down 269 feet into a wild and wonderful chasm called the Devil's Throat. It was there that a catwalk with a perforated metal floor was built over for tourists— where Liam and Harry are standing now. It leads up to the very foot of the waterfall so you can look above and feel small and unworthy. The catwalk isn't as slippery or wet as Harry had anticipated, which is what Liam argued prior to their arrival. It's nothing like the sopping adventure that was their visit to Niagara Falls. The wind just blows a gentle and quite refreshing mist their way. But Harry isn't taking any chances. They may not be soaking wet, but he's satisfied knowing that his plastic little poncho offers him complete protection from the elements. When nature strikes in unfavorable ways he can become grumpy— too cold, too much wind, sudden rain. So far he's averted any such crisis on their vacation trip. But when the climate is so hot and tropical it's rare for anything but gorgeous sunshine to make an appearance. It's been a satisfying trip all around.

"We aren't even American. You should be watching BBC."

"This was in my recommended videos. I don't know."

Argentina is beautiful so far. So far being one day— day 3 of Liam and Harry's six day Brazilian getaway vacation. Iguazu Falls has two different views: one from Brazil and one from Argentina. The overwhelming public opinion was that the waterfall isn't worth seeing unless you're looking at it from San Martin Island in Argentina. So Liam and Harry took the costly thirty-minute trip there from Brazil. But the price was worth it. Not that money has been an issue this whole trip. So long as Liam is in charge of handling expenses there isn't much he's capable of being stingy about. Especially when he's powerless against his boyfriend's pretty pouts, or the threat of dampening his mood for the rest of the day like a sulking child. Liam's prone to spoiling Harry anyway, so it's been a pricey harmony all throughout. Like a blissful sugardaddy tending to his sugarbaby— except the money came from a generous sponsor from said sugarbaby's well-off stepdad. _"Happy Anniversary!"_ He's wired money to Harry's account twice already.

 _"And then they had a ritual. They started by two,"_ Celine Dion presses a kiss to two fingertips, _"and then one,"_ and then just one, _"on the picture and 'I love you.' And they started that and every night we kiss the picture and they make sure, 'Mom, did you kiss dad?' and 'Nelson, did you kiss dad?' So we have that ritual."_

"Aw, that's sweet."

_"And my fifteen-year-old, I said to him, 'You will never have the responsibility to become the man of the house. This is your life. You're not your dad.'"_

_"I think that's wise,"_ that old blonde TV host nods so sincerely at Celine Dion's words.

"What are you gonna do when I die?"

"What?" Liam snorts and furrows his brow, turning to look at Harry after pausing the video. "What?"

Harry's scratching at his dimple, amused by his own grim ponder. It came impulsively. "When I die. If I die. What are you going to do?"

Liam tries to think of a joke, but he's surprised to find himself a bit flustered by the left-field prompt. His brow relaxes, though still somewhat tense. "I'm older than you, though..."

"But cancer runs in my family." Harry sounds so peaceful about it and it's annoying.

"Yeah well, my kidney's probably gonna disappear again." And Liam shrugs, thinking of more genetically likely demises. "And I'll get diabetes, probably."

"Realistically I'll get diabetes. Pretty bad one. I eat lots of sweets."

That's true, actually. Cancer and diabetes.

"So I'll definitely die first."

Liam looks at Harry with such indignation that Harry giggles at all the distress. Like a child celebrating a devious prank. "You think you're funny?" But Liam's laughing while he says it, giving Harry a poke in his waist that makes him squirm away. "Don't joke about stuff like that! Stick to knock-knock jokes." He gets so emotional sometimes.

"You looovee meee~" Harry teases as he hugs Liam's back, rocking them side to side in his plastic-wrapped embrace. "You're gonna cry when I dieee~"

"Oh Jesus." Liam can't help but smile though exasperated—lovingly, as always. He squirms a little so he can break free from Harry's embrace and pull him into a new one. Face to face, his back against the bars of the metal catwalk and Harry's hips against his. Liam's grabs Harry's hands and interlocks their fingers so they can swing each others' arms and move them around to their liking. Harry looks so cute in his stupid poncho. No one else has a poncho but him. His short hair has curled and fluffed from the humidity and it falls over his forehead slightly, but you can't see it much under the plastic hoodie. Harry gives Liam a goofy thin-lipped grin, which Liam then returns sans dimples. They really should be looking at the waterfall with this much wonder in their eyes.

"I love you sooo much," Harry tells Liam quietly, swinging their clasped hands back and forth. "It's crazy."

"Love me or the trip?"

"You!" He laughs, offended. "Shut up. Of course I love you. Idiot. You're my favorite person in the whole world."

Liam smiles in a quiet sigh, and then whines, "Don't be a cheeseball." And Harry giggles. "I'm the cheeseball." And it's true. Harry is the dry and disapproving one who internalizes everything. Liam's heart has adjusted to his affections like raising the volume to 100 so you can hear a murmur through your headphones. Whenever Harry gets too bold and silly Liam is frankly overwhelmed. In the best way. "If you're a cheeseball and I'm a cheeseball then it's just gonna be too much dairy. I can't take it I'm gonna explode. Not like, toilet explode but emotional explode. I'm a very sensitive person." For such a solid-looking hunk he's surprisingly weak at the seams. His dark brown eyes can look warm and gentle so easily; just a simple squint. It's easy for Harry to tell how in love he is all the time. 

"My lima beeeaan." Torment; bringing all the cheese with his dimply smile and sing-songy voice. He brings his weight forward and pins Liam to the metal bars as their chests touch. "My big puppy dog. I love you more than anything in the whole world. I love you so, so much, darling. I'm so happy."

"Aaaaaaah," Liam can't take it; red-faced and eyes squinting nearly shut as he grins. He's trying not to laugh too loud as Harry invades his personal space to be a grabby, handsy menace.

"I just love you. I'm so in love with you, Li." He presses his palms to Liam's cheeks and squeezes them together until he's got his face scruched together in his hands. "Look at your squishy face! So hairy!" he giggles in a high voice as he massages Liam's cheeks around. The beard softens his face, though he always looks older with the grizzly texture of it. "My squishy hairy baby. You're so handsome."

"Dank kyew, lub," Liam giggles with his face smushed together.

"I love kissing this face. I love sitting on this face."

Liam snorts before bursting into a shut-eyed cackle, snapping his head away from Harry's grasp so he can pull him in for a tight hug. "Shut up! You're so weird!"

Harry grumbles and babbles into Liam's chest to make a scene, tickling his sides to be a pest. Liam tries his best to contain him but his hands keep grabbing at the crinkling plastic of Harry's poncho and it only makes him laugh harder. The tour guide and the family give them a puzzled glance, watching these two young men wiggling and giggling together.

They're both weird, really. Liam and Harry are two oddly shaped jigsaw puzzles that never quite fit with any piece life thew their way. There was always some insecurity— some shortcoming they hid, some ideal they tried to mold themselves around to feel accepted. Falsehood manifested, the art of settling. Dating good-enoughs and as-good-as-it-gets's and straining to find fulfillment in whatever partners whose company they decided wasn't _that_ bad. Because Liam and Harry are both so _odd_ and so _peculiar_ , which fathers futile relationships, which therein breeds feelings of inadequacy— such is the cycle. They began to compromise and believe that the problem lied within a defective product and not at all an incompetent consumer. That one cracked egg in a dozen, the potato chip with a mysterious green spot on it— not much you can do about being that chance undesirable. _C'est la vie_. Harry believing himself to be complicated, demanding, selfish, shallow and boring; Liam believing himself to be clingy, insecure, dimwitted, mediocre and annoying. In essence: _"I'm the problem."_

But they were never poorly designed. Liam and Harry were just a single piece torn in half destined not for companionship but for completion. A to B, 1 to 2, left to right— only together did they make sense. Because Harry _is_ demanding and Liam is more than happy to spoil him. Liam _is_ insecure and Harry is more than happy to take him out of his comfort zone. Harry _is_ complicated and Liam is more than happy to try and understand him. And Liam _is_ clingy and Harry is more than happy to bask in the attention. Liam kind of likes when Harry is a bitch. And Harry kind of likes it when Liam gets whiny. They both get dry and on each others nerves, and express their affections in absurd exaggerations because it's fun to take things too far. And that's where they've been for the past four years since they met on a cruise headed to Puerto Rico. It was very cinematic, very romantic-comedy-drama filmed on cinema scope and nominated for Best Screenplay. And the movie hasn't really finished since.

38,544 hours into the movie and our main protagonists find themselves in Argentina watching a Celine Dion interview and making an affectionate scene by an enormous waterfall.

"Hold on."

"What?" Harry moves away so he's standing by Liam's side without being a pest.

"Let's just..." Liam sticks his hand in his pocket and pulls out his phone.

"The video?"

"I'm curious," he laughs. "I wanna see how this ends. Let's just do it."

"Wow, yeah, take a risk. Go wild."

The video is right where Liam left off when he unlocks his phone. The bar is nearly at the end. Not much to go. "Okay?" So he knows when to press play.

"Yeah, go."

 _"'You're not here to replace no one.'"_ Celine Dion says seriously, as if she were speaking to her son. _"'You deserve to have your happiness. Your dad is with you.'"_

_"And not place such a huge burden on a 15 year old child."_

_"No, no. That's not alright."_

Suddenly the screen fades to black.

"What happened?"

A somewhat aging bald black man in glasses appears on the screen, charmingly concluding the video with helpful tips. _"Hello, Today fans. Thanks for checking out our Youtube channel."_

"Oh it's a Youtube video."

"Has it finished?" Liam frowns. It definitely has. "Aw."

 _"Subscribe by clicking that button down there,"_ he points to a notification box at the bottom of the video, _"and click on any of the videos over here,"_ he points to his right, where three squares play clips of other videos from the Today Show that are available for viewing, _"to watch the latest interviews, show highlights, and digital exclusives."_ And the video finally ends.

"Wanna watch another video?" Liam asks for the hell of it.

"That's... okay," Harry chuckles, watching Liam pocket his phone before propping his elbows on the catwalk bar and looking down at the water. "Let's just look at the sights and feel small."

"Okay."

The family of four is still talking, remarkably. But since it's so early it looks like the park doesn't get much tourist activity at this hour, therefore the delay can be afforded. Harry sticks his head under Liam's armpit and pushes hard to force him to lift his arm and make room. He snuggles there inappropriately, under Liam's chest and with his own elbows on the metal bar as Liam rests his arm over the back of his neck.

"Fix my hoodie."

So Liam does, accidentally messing up Harry's hair under the forward pull of the thin blue plastic hood.

"Thank you."

Liam doesn't know if he was being sarcastic or not. They look up at the waterfall together, enjoying the sound of all that water roaring around them. And he does feel small in the presence of that sight. Helpless and meaningless which can be a nice break, sometimes, from the overwhelming burden that it so be too conscious and too aware of too much— in his case particularly— all the time. In a way, that Celine Dion video interview served the same purpose. Not much taken, not much given either. But it was an odd distraction that pacified some inner longing. It could get complicated if Liam thought on that too much. _What inner longing did Celine Dion pacify?_ It's absurd. But things like that are nice. Stupid and serene.

"I'm hungry."

There goes the serenity. Liam sighs, resting his cheek on Harry's head. He doesn't like the way the plastic feels on his beard. "Where do you want to go eat?"

"Uh... I want..." Harry pretends like he's thinking hard on it, and it isn't actually something he's been dying for in his head since before they arrived to Argentina. "Argentine churrasco." His eyes light up when he says it.

"It's morning."

They die out again. "Oops." And they both laugh. "Uh... I dunno. A bakery?"

"I'm _so_ surprised." Not at all. Harry's been calling stops at restaraunts and bakeries like a pregnant woman burning with cravings. If Liam paid any attention at all to where their money was going, he'd see that nearly all of it was going into their routine restaraunt stops. "In that case, you pick a place."

Harry slithers himself away from Liam's arms. "Okay." And walks away.

"Wha— Not now!" Liam scoffs.

But Harry assures him, "I just wanna have a look from this side," as he shuffles away in his plastic poncho to the other side of the catwalk. "Relax."

Harry's turn to ponder as he looks up at the waterfalls. But he passes; opting out for a quiet humming buzz in place of an actual thought at all. Who really thinks about anything important on vacation? He likes being sappy and weird and spontaneous, and Liam likes it too. It must be the foreign country, the new sights, the endless surplus of cash. Harry's relationship with his inhibitions has always been an unpredictable one. But being predictably uninhibited fosters good habits for a change. The only bad one being that he wants food all the time. It's showing. The blue plastic poncho tightens around his belly. But a belly isn't bad, really. So there's no real cons. He just watched a Celine Dion interview for the first time in his life— by an Argentine waterfall. _How's that for new experiences?_ he thinks to himself, very pleased.

Suddenly music begins to play. Terrible quality. Harry doesn't pay attention to it at first, looking up at the waterfall crashing down before him. But the melody becomes familiar immediately. He just doesn't know from where. It sounds so iconic. That _flute_.

 _"Every night in my dreams_  
_I see you, I feel you,_  
_That is how I know you go on"_

"Aw, is that the Titanic song? Where's it coming from?" White Mother of Three turns her head eagerly to face the source of the music.

 _"Far across the distance_  
_And spaces between us_  
_You have come to show you go on"_

Of course it's Liam, smiling down at his phone as he rests his weight on the bars of the catwalk. Harry was ready to walk over, but Liam is the one who took the initiative to come to him instead. Harry isn't sure what to expect. But by the grin on his boyfriend's face, he's got something cooking. Once by his side, Liam sticks out his phone with the screen facing Harry to he can read,

_Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On (Titanic Soundtrack)_

"Told you it was Celine Dion."

Harry narrows his eyes and gives Liam a push, and Liam basks in the glory of being right for a change. He was going to turn off his phone but White Mother of Three begins to sing along to the lyrics. She has a soulful voice— not that it's a good one. It's a terrible one. But she sings passionately anyway, looking up at Iguazu Falls as she sings the partially incorrect lyrics of My Heart Will Go On. The kids are embarrassed, but the husband is delighted.

 _"Near, far, wherever you are_  
_I believe that the heart does go on_  
_Once more you open the door_  
_And you're here in my heart_  
_And my heart will go on and on"_

Liam and Harry don't mind. They're busy reenacting the scene in Titanic where Jack and Rose stand in the very front of the ship, and she looks on into the ocean horizon with her arms outstretched as Jack holds her waist. An arguably less heartwarming re-imagining: Harry with arms outstretched his stupid blue plastic raincoat and Liam unable to see anything because Harry is too tall.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave kudos and share with me your thoughts.
> 
> P.S. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU3MHXpn4zM) is the interview, if you are curious.  
> 


End file.
